Ralph Elthirst observed both competitors from above and seeing that they were both as ready as could be expected, he gave the command:
"Begin the match!"
Ralph then disappeared from view after giving those instructions. No sooner than Ralph gave that command and vanished, however, Nick quickly raised his right arm all the way up and spoke firmly:
"I surrender."
There was a brief silence that pervaded the arena's stands immediately after Nick said those words. William opened both his eyes wide in response to Nick's words, not believing what he was hearing. Varrow, who had been silent since returning to the section, quickly stood up from his seat and cursed:
"What the fuck, Nick?"
Varrow, realizing a moment later that he had spoken inappropriately, sat back down and became silent again but his expression clearly revealed his irritation. After Varrow's outburst, the spectators also reacted and loudly discussed:
"What? Nick Capitol surrendered just like that; is the sky falling?"
"Sigh. He must be wary of William Rollins' light path powers. After all, Lewis Nefari had to be saved using a regular level time path potion after his match with William concluded."
"Does that matter? It is common courtesy for competent Magicians to duke it out a little before any surrenders are declared. Nick Capitol is simply just acting as he pleases. Hmph!"
"Well, I didn't expect this. This means that William will advance to face Kirst Elthirst later on without trouble. Light path versus blood path; I can't wait."
"I thought I would get to see Nick kick some ass with his weird style of fighting but I guess not. He is not the first person to just surrender in the fighting rounds but his surrender is the most impactful thus far."
"This is too disappointing, too heart breaking."
"What's wrong with Nick Capitol? Did his nuts suddenly retract into his brain?"
...
Nick ignored the discussions of the spectators and lowered his right hand, feeling some weight lift off his shoulders after he did; at that time, he somehow sensed the gold coin that was associated with Might Eye that was being stored within his space band vanish. William's expression became plain a few moments after realizing that Nick was serious. Ralph soon appeared floating above Nick and William once again and with a weird expression plastered on his face as he glanced at Nick, he declared:
"William Rollins has won this match by way of his opponent's surrender!"
William then asked Nick:
"Can you at least tell me why you surrendered so quickly?"
Nick shrugged his shoulders and replied:
"I guess that you could say that I've basically achieved everything that I intended to achieve during this competition and now, it's time for me to go home."
Nick wasn't bullshitting about that. He took part in the competition in order to properly digest his new attainment levels and to broaden his horizons. After participating in or seeing the previous events and matches, those goals were basically achieved and he was eager to return to his closed door cultivation. Nick had never planned on winning the entire competition.
(I don't need the attention that I would get from winning and I doubt that the prizes at the end are really worth people prying into my business afterwards. Besides, it is hard to say that I would have even won. Whether it's William's or Kirst's powers, they are more uniformly developed and stable than my own. The only way that I would win this competition is if I got extremely lucky. He, he...the Greeks said that the beginning of wisdom is to know thyself. It's not that I think that I would absolutely lose, I just don't need to win this particular competition.)
After having made up his mind, there was no way that Nick would have hesitated at this point. After seeing the battle between Uriah Narco and Kirst Elthirst, he was already well aware of his insufficiencies and would rather return to remedy them than struggle for a prize that he was not interested in.
Kirst Elthirst sat within Great Overlord Academy's section and watched Nick silently and ultimately did not bother to offer an opinion about the latter's surrender.
(I won't bother considering someone that already quit.)
Nick cast Space Rift and opened a space gate in front of himself that led to Richter Order Academy's section. He walked through the space gate immediately after it formed and when he came out on the other side and closed it, William was already sitting in his previous seat, next to Varrow, which did not surprise Nick:
(Sure enough, bright light is fast.)
As soon as Nick appeared, Varrow faced him and asked:
"Why did you surrender like that? You should have at least tried to beat William and if you failed and surrendered then, it would have been no real lost to you."
Nick answered his former teacher politely:
"Sir Varrow, I just think that I've gained all I can from participating in this competition up until now. If you don't mind, I would like to find my own way home at this point."
Varrow raised his right eyebrow and asked:
"Fine, I have to accept your decision even though I disagree with it. Do you really think that you can leave on your own?"
Nick knew that he could leave Large Garden using the transportation sub-formation that was linked to the main transportation formation within the underground parking lot of his commercial building.
(When I was working to repair the magic formation, Purification Echo, which forms a part of Garden Isle's cloaking and defense, I learnt after explanations from the formation path master, Henley, and through my own examination of Purification Echo's laws that the magic formations protecting this island prevents unauthorized people from using their methods to get onto the island directly, other than by using the ports, but literally anyone can leave Garden Isle using their own magic.)
Varrow contemplated for a few moments before saying:
"Go ahead and leave if you can but let me remind you. If you remain within Large Garden after I have returned to Grand Earth, there will be severe consequences for you to face."
Varrow would not keep Nick within Large Garden if the latter really had a way to leave because that would be an inappropriate thing to do to an aspiring licensed Magician, so he was not going to make an issue out of Nick's early departure.
William had nothing to say about Nick wanting to leave since everyone had their own ways of doing things. Patrice glanced at Nick and only said:
"Be safe. The next time I see you, I would like to sit down for a decent chat if possible."
Nick silently nodded at Patrice to show his understanding and then left the academy's section, returning to his hotel room ten minutes later by having cast Grey Room to travel there. Nick sat at the dining table within the hotel room and summoned a meal of cheese pasta, smoked chicken smothered in barbeque sauce and a slice of black forest cake.
While he was having his meal, he received a call from Carla Jenner, which he immediately picked up:
"Hello, Carla."
Carla wasted no time in asking:
"How could you surrender like that, Nick honey? I was betting on you winning the competition."
Nick replied without hesitation:
"I just didn't want to go any further in the competition. Besides, I have other matters that need my attention."
Carla wanted to ask what were the other matters that Nick was referring to but she held her tongue, remembering how closed off this man was. She instead said:
"I am proud of you for how far you got and the performance that you gave. Your competence really surprises me, considering your age. I remember that when I was your age, I was still trying to form a proper spell set based on multiple shadow path inheritances and I failed to do so for years, but you seem to have better quality spells than I did at that time. How much did you spend on obtaining the spells that I saw you cast? Even the sword technique that you displayed must have been expensive."
Nick didn't mind telling Carla the truth about this matter:
"I didn't spend any money on spells. They are all originals of mine and the sword technique was...given to me by a very strong Magician."
Carla raised both her eyebrows and replied:
"To think that you are such a competent spell maker. It really makes me think that I didn't work hard enough during my academy years. Well, I'm letting you know that The Magic Scroll Company is doing fairly well at this point and our working with the military has given us much profits by this time. Are you interested in having dinner with me and a few of the contacts that I have made?"
Nick would not dare to put himself into a position that could end up with him being cornered by Carla like when he last drove with her to her family's estate. He flatly refused:
"I'll be busy doing important tasks for months so I'll have to refuse. Thank you for the invite, though."
Carla squinted both her eyes and sneered internally but still spoke into the phone with a sweet voice, saying:
"Fine. I'm busy too so I'll contact you again later, Nick honey."
Carla hung up the phone and Nick went on to eat the rest of his meal. When he finished his meal ten minutes later, he stood beside the dining table and summoned a tennis-ball-sized, crystal-blue projection stone from his space band and threw it at his own feet. The projection stone lit up when it hit the hardwood floor, following which, a blue magic formation appeared beneath Nick's feet. Nick spoke the magic formation's trigger phrase and it quickly adopted and radiated with a bright, silver light.
Silver light filled Nick's vision and when it dissipated one minute later, Nick found himself standing within the underground parking lot of his commercial building with his main transportation space path magic formation below his feet; the magic formation was still maintained using a bright-silver pigment.
Nick looked around and noticed the jade-green wyvern sleeping in the corner of the parking lot but left it alone. Nick quickly went up-stairs and ran into Nate, Dewy's grandson, on the ground floor. Nate was at first flustered when he suddenly saw Nick appear from the basement level but managed to compose himself immediately after.
Nate wore an ordinary set of work clothes, consisting of a white dress shirt, black dress pants and a pair of black dress shoes. He greeted Nick with politeness:
"Hello, sir Nick. Congratulations on going as far as you did in the inter-academy competition."
Nick nodded at the man that was around his age and replied:
"I only did so-so. It's nothing to congratulate me about. How are things?"
Nate replied enthusiastically; it was not a common thing for him to get a chance to speak with Nick alone:
"Everything around here is going great. We fed the creature in the underground parking lot while you were gone and kept Tracy Capitol out of your business. Everything else, including the procurement of magic materials that you spoke to my grandfather about, is being managed appropriately as we speak."
Nick replied:
"That's good. I want those magic materials delivered to this building as soon as possible."
Nate awkwardly saluted by raising his right hand to his forehead and responded without thinking:
"Will do, Sir."
Nick tried his hardest not to laugh out loud at Nate in response to the latter's salute and managed to keep his amusement to himself. He told Nate to come find him if there was anything bothering him and then briskly walked to the second floor.
When Nick got to the second floor, he went straight for his work desk, where he found a brown parcel box sealed with a black tape that had Valteesian symbols drawn on it. There was a paper note attached to the box and so Nick detached it and read it:
"Hello, Mr. Capitol. As per your request, this parcel containing the bones of a dust fade dragon has been delivered to your residence on the authority of Desmond Elthirst. The dust fade dragon is a rank 3 space path dragon that lives within the Starless Night realm, whose access rights are jointly owned by our royal family, the Nefari family and others. Thank you for your assistance in solving our problem within Large Garden."
After reading the note, Nick tore the black tape off the parcel box which required him to pore his magic energy into the tape as he tore it off. Inside the box rested an incomplete set of dull-grey bones. Nick nodded his head in acceptance since this was basically what he had asked Desmond for. Bones like these were worth far more than mere money to him, so he did not bother trying to attach a monetary value to them.
Nick stored the parcel box along with the bones within his space band and sat at his work table. He then summoned his tablet computer and five bags of butter bread from his space band onto the table. He opened one bag of butter bread and put a piece of the bread into his mouth before picking up his tablet computer and putting his whole attention on working on the design for his new magic formation.
Ideas began to flood Nick's mind as he worked and the longer that he maintained his focus, the more complex the ideas became. Nick planned to incorporate rule path, soul path, and space into this magic formation. The magic formation's core functions would not really involve battling because that would require even more effort to formulate than Nick planned on putting into it. In order to develop the magic formation at a reasonable pace, Nick decided that the magic formation's design would favor functions that included scouting, movement and hiding.
Nick wanted to use the magic formation to explore realms, so those three aspects had to be his major considerations. Nick stayed on the second floor working on the design for the next two weeks until he became stuck at a problem regarding the movement aspect of the magic formation. The magic materials that needed to be incorporated in the design would make the magic formation very heavy and so Nick needed a way to manage the magic formation's weight perpetually so that he could move it by himself with minimal expenditure.
Nick made use of rule path principles having to do with the concept of 'light' and by fortunately gaining inspiration from his Limitless Path talent soon after, he obtained information on the rule path principles of 'system' and 'navigation'. He also incorporated the rule path principles of 'engine' into the design as well.
After three more weeks of working, Nick was made aware that Kirst Elthirst had actually won the inter-academy competition by defeating William Rollins; Nick read about it in an old email from the academy. Nick was not surprised so he put that matter aside. Around that time, all the magic materials that Nick had asked Dewy to have procured were delivered and brought onto the ground floor of his building, following which, Nick stored them within his space band.
All in all, the materials weighed over eight tonnes and cost Nick £72,000,000,000 to procure but he decided that the cost was worth it after he stared at the figure representing his current bank account balance on his first floor office computer for a day.
(After all these purchases, I only have about £70,000,000,000 left but I can recover the money that I spent later if I make more progress. Sigh.)
During this time, Nick used his last research opportunity granted by the brass ring that he had obtained from Lieutenant Andrew Wiles and Commander Jeffery Wallace within Never Ending Battlefield to research refinement path. The information that the military's database provided was comprehensive, so much so, that Nick realized that refinement path was potentially a more utilitarian path than even formation path:
(Refinement path involves using magic energy and magic power to gain control of and even produce magical laws in both orthodox and unorthodox ways. The path also involves the production of magic materials and has very wide applications, from building construction to weapon manufacture. I can see why raising a pure Refinement Magician would be expensive. The path has very little inbuilt combat applications but requires a tremendous amount of study and resources to produce results. How would a lone Magician gain those resources without being proficient in combat and how would an organization recover the copious amounts of resources that it spent raising a Refinement Magician if that Magician was suddenly killed? Ha! What an interesting path.)
After Nick, was done researching refinement path, he had Dewy and Nate order 1,000,000 rank 2 magic beast souls of the best quality from the Spirit Nectar Company. Nick did not plan on consuming those souls but instead planned on using them as a sort of supplementary power source within his new magic formation. The magic formation promised to be powerful but such power needed adequate fuel and with Nick being alone, he had no other choice than to find additional fuel sources other than his own magic energy reserves and normal magic materials.
Because Nick was a soul path scholar, he knew that souls could be used as a suitable fuel source; he just had to figure out how to make use of them in that way. Nick spent roughly £35,000,000,000 on 1,000,000 high quality rank 2 magic beast souls. Nick gnashed his teeth whenever he thought about the money that he had spent on the souls but persevered in doing his work.
Dewy and Nate, who both knew how much money Nick was spending over the past few weeks, thought that their boss had lost his mind. Nick had evidently spent over £100,000,000,000 on resources that in their eyes weren't worth giving up the comfort that such an amount could buy. If a normal person had that kind of money, they would never have to work another day in their life but Nick had spent all that money as if it was normal. One day, Nate asked Dewy:
"Isn't Nick going to go bankrupt at this rate?"
Dewy looked at his grandson seriously and replied:
"Nick must have a reason for spending so much money. Don't worry too much about it."
Five more months passed and Nick was finally able to complete the design for his new magic formation. The magic formation had rule path as its back bone, which supported its soul path and space path qualities and functions. On the morning that he finished the design, Nick stood in front of his work table and raised his tablet computer to the immediate front of his face, examining the laws displayed on the high definition screen with weary, blood-shot eyes.
Nick was satisfied with the design and decided to call it the Silent Ark Formation because it was designed to manifest as a structure with a boat like base that had a control cabin affixed along its top length. Now that Nick had the completed design, he just needed to implement it, which he planned to do as soon as possible.
"I've bled so much money and I still have other kinds of cultivation that I need to place my focus on later. If I don't move to recover the cost of building the Silent Ark Formation, I will probably end up destitute again."
Nick chuckled when he thought of his poverty stricken state a few years ago. He wasn't really too worried about going back to that life because of who he was able become during the period that followed - a knowledgeable and competent Apprentice Magician.
"Formal qualifications are great but real skills and useful knowledge are what are important in creating wealth that lasts. In that way, it is who you are as a person that ultimately determines your station in life, not the money that is currently in your bank account, not the friends that you have and definitely not the school that you graduated from."
Nick went to the ground floor while carrying his tablet computer within his left hand so that he could go down to the underground parking lot but when he got to the ground floor, there was a commotion at his building's entrance. Nate was arguing with a young woman that seemed to want to get into the building; a man that seemed to be just about the woman's age stood beside her. The woman spoke with annoyance in her tone:
"Why won't you let us inside? Is Nick here? Do you know that I am his sister, Tracy Capitol?"
Nate sighed and then explained:
"Yes, I know who you are but Mr. Nick is not looking to entertain any visitors. You should leave, right now."
Tracy's lips quivered a little and Jacob Argant, who was standing beside her, spoke to Nate politely:
"Could you tell Nick that we would like to speak with him about an important matter?"
Nate was about to refuse but Nick appeared behind him and placed his own right hand on Nate's left shoulder, saying:
"You can go Nate; I'll talk to these two."
Nate glanced behind him and quickly replied:
"Okay, sir."
Nate left for other parts of the ground floor while Nick stood at the entrance of the building, facing Tracy and Jacob. Tracy seemed ecstatic that she finally got to see Nick but she was confused as to why her seemingly wealthy and powerful brother looked so tired in the face. Nick wore a white and blue, striped polo-shirt, a pair of light-blue jeans pants and a pair of laceless dress shoes; he did not have his two swords holstered at his waist at the moment. Jacob guessed the reason as to why Nick looked so weary:
(Magic cultivation is...hard.)
Nick asked the two young Magicians a question using a tone that indicated his tiredness:
"What brings you two here? Please don't speak any unnecessary details, I don't have time for it."
Tracy wore a knee-length, brown skirt, a white graphic t-shirt and a pair of white and black sneakers; she had a black backpack hanging from her right shoulder. Jacob wore a pair of black jeans pants, a red graphic t-shirt and a pair of black and red sneakers. Tracy opened her mouth to speak, then closed it and thought about what she really wanted to say before she opened her mouth again to speak:
"Since the inter-academy competition, I have taken an interest in formation path and I think that I have made some great progress so far. Recently, I took on a mission from the academy's mission hall to research and suggest possible redesigns for a rank 2 fire path magic formation. I will be paid based on the feasibility of my suggestions. We know that you have some skills in formation path from watching you during the inter-academy competition. If you are willing to help me, please assist me with the suggestions for redesigns in exchange for a portion of the reward money and the mission credit."
(I am reasonably sure that Nick will agree to my request since he is currently at the bottom of the third year rankings and his helping me would not only gain him over £10,000, he would rise in the rankings. Although Nick seems to have money, who would not want more?)
Nick rubbed his forehead with his right hand's fingers and replied:
"This is the important matter that you wanted to discuss? Who would pay someone for redesigns of a basic apprentice grade magic formation?"
Tracy blinked her eyes innocently and answered:
"The issuer of the mission is actually a fellow student but they are wealthy, so the base reward is about £22,000."
When Nick heard that the mission issuer was a student, the mission did not seem so ridiculous anymore.
(Students won't likely have access to the help of licensed Formation Magicians, who are relatively rare in the first place, so someone unskilled in formation path would be forced to ask other students for help but how many students are actually skilled in designing magic formations? Carla was surprised by my formation path skills a few years ago for a reason. Students who specialized in formation path were rare and those who were any good at it were even rarer. Tracy came to me for help because it is likely impossible for her to redesign even a basic magic formation on her own and the mission isn't even asking her to do that; it is asking her to make feasible suggestions on how to redesign it. £22,000 might be a large sum to her but to me, it is only a drop in the bucket...but since she is already here...)
Seeing that Nick remained silent after hearing Tracy's request, Jacob said:
"Tracy is willing to give you most of the reward for your help, she mostly wants the rise in ranking that would come from completing this difficult mission."
Tracy nodded her head vigorously in order to confirm Jacob's words. Nick openly sighed and placed his right hand to his right side and asked:
"Where is the design for the magic formation?"
Tracy was internally overjoyed that Nick seemed interested:
(I knew it, no one coming from our background can resist so much money.)
Tracy opened her backpack and took out a copy of the fire path magic formation that was drawn on a relatively large piece of parchment like paper; the magic formation was arranged using Valteesian symbols and it had a circular shape. Nick took the paper from Tracy with his right hand and held it in front of himself and examined it for eight minutes. At the end of that time, Nick was already bored:
(Although I know very little about fire path, I am a formation path master and to redesign this formation in order to achieve the same fire path effect is child's play. The purpose of this magic formation is evidently to warm a room using a certain amount of stored magic energy over a few hours. Simple enough.)
Nick then spent eight more minutes to redesign the magic formation within his own mindscape which was the equivalent of days of formulation work for normal people. After that, he gave Tracy back the paper with the original design. Tracy and Jacob seemed to have been waiting patiently for Nick to take a look at the magic formation and once Tracy had the design again, she asked:
"So, are you willing to help?"
Instead of answering Tracy with words, Nick simply summoned a clipboard-sized piece of canvas paper from his space band and held it within his right grip while casting a spell on it:
(Big Copy.)
Nick's rule path magic immediately drew many Valteesian symbols onto the canvas paper, that it arranged in a rectangular shape; before the effect of Big Copy was fully resolved, many symbols seemed to move around randomly on the paper and those that remained in place wriggled. The new magic formation was completed within five seconds. When Nick's magic settled, the magic formation's symbols appeared still on the canvas paper and was apparently designed using a dull-red pigment.
Tracy and Jacob were unsure of what Nick was doing but they still waited patiently for him to finish without saying anything. Nick handed Tracy the new design for the fire path magic formation moments after he completed it and said:
"This is the new design for the fire path magic formation. I don't need the reward or the credit. Just please stop coming here, okay."
Tracy and Jacob were shocked that Nick could actually redesign the magic formation so quickly. Tracy had asked for help with creating suggestions on how to redesign the magic formation but Nick exceeded her expectations. She internally asked herself:
(How did he do it?)
During the inter-academy competition, many people, including Tracy and Jacob, saw Nick supposedly designing a magic formation and using it afterwards but most of them did not know how formation path worked or what it took to be able to design a magic formation or even whether being able to design one magic formation meant that you could design a different magic formation with a similar adeptness.
Jacob acted to thank Nick for his help before Tracy:
"Thank you for your help, Nick."
Nick thought that it was weird that Jacob was thanking him when the mission was supposedly Tracy's but ultimately, he did not care. Nick replied:
"Okay, I'm going now. Remember, don't come back here, Tracy. I mean it."
Tracy jubilantly nodded her head in response to Nick's words as she held the new magic formation design. Seeing her expression, Nick sighed internally:
(What are the chances that she's actually not going to come back? Whatever...I need to get back to work.)
Nick walked away from Tracy and Jacob, closing the door to the building behind him and then proceeded to go down to the underground parking lot. Once there, he went to the center of the parking lot; the jade-green wyvern was sleeping in the corner at this time. Nick cast Big Copy again but this time, he simply pointed his right index finger in front of him.
Following the appearance of a few red sparks of light in the air around his finger, Nick's new magic formation's base appeared in front of him in midair, designed in a dull-red pigment and facing himself. The magic formation's base was rectangular in shape, consisting of over ten million symbols and now its longest sides were resting horizontally in front of Nick. Nick willed and the magic formation shifted in order to face the concrete floor while it remained about two feet above the floor.
Nick looked at his tablet computer still within his left grip and looked over the requirements for completing the magic formation before storing the tablet computer within his space band and then summoned a few dozen ingots of different magic metals of varying colors from his space band, such as: bronze, silver and black, which he placed onto the floor. Nick also summoned dozens of planks of a dull-grey wood and also placed them onto the floor.
Nick breathed in and out deeply before taking an ingot of bronze colored metal and placed it near the magic formation's base, following which, Nick poured his magic energy into the metal and guided it towards a certain section of the magic formation's edge. The magic formation reacted by glowing with a dull-red light and the bronze metal also reacted by morphing in order to change from a cuboidal ingot into a metal sheet.
The metal sheet then firmly stuck to the edge of the seemingly intangible magic formation as if it had been nailed to an iron wall. Nick reasoned:
"Magic materials meant for construction are relatively easy to employ on a small scale by using my own magic energy to shape them and keep them in place but this method is inefficient. That being said, I don't have the man power or know-how to make use of machines to speed this along. I could probably have designed sub-formations to help but I'd rather gain the slow experience that scars the process into my bones since this is the first time that I am building a magic formation like this."
Nick did the same thing that he did to the first ingot to the others that he had on the ground and then to the planks of wood. He then summoned many more magic materials from his space band and proceeded to use them to build onto the magic formation's base in the same manner as before.
Like this, three more months passed before Nick was finished making use of all the magic materials to complete his magic formation. At the end of that time, Nick stood at the side of the magic formation and examined it closely, feeling an insane amount of pride as he did.
Silent Ark had a metal exterior that was completely black in color. It was shaped like a sail boat that was five-meters-long, its broadest width at its center was about two meters and it had an overall height of about two meters. Silent Ark's base was covered from end-to-end by a cabin that had a vault like door that extended from the top of the cabin to the top of the base and it had a rectangular shape.
"The interior of Silent Ark is lined with other metals but its deepest layer is made entirely of dull-grey 'creepy wood', which is a soul path material."
Silent Ark now floated one foot above the parking lot floor so Nick used Absolute Push and Absolute Pull in order to raise himself high enough to comfortably open its door and enter. Inside the cabin, there was a padded, black leather chair at its center that was bolted to the grey, wooden floor. Other than that chair, there were no other furniture within the cabin.
Nick walked towards the chair while his posture remained upright since the ceiling was positioned high enough from the floor that he did not have to stoop. Nick sat in the leather chair and willed for five seemingly holographic displays to appear in front of him, three of them being side-by-side and two more that were situated side-by-side slightly above the latter three. The lowest three displays showed him a three hundred and sixty-degree angle view of the parking lot around Silent Ark. Regarding the two highest positioned displays, the left display showed the view above Silent Ark and the right display showed the view below Silent Ark.
The holographic displays radiated space path magic power because they were in fact manifested using Silent Ark's space path laws. Nick didn't enter the cabin to loiter so he carried on with the rest of what he intended to do. Nick willed and a basket-ball-sized sphere of darkness appeared beside the right armrest of his leather chair, following which, Nick summoned rank 2 magic beast souls one by one from his space band, which were then automatically sucked into the dark sphere's internal void to be used as fuel for the magic formation.
Nick spent about an entire day loading Silent Ark's fuel reserves with magic beast souls, at the end of which, all 1,000,000 of those magic beast souls were assimilated into the magic formation. At that point, Nick fully activated the magic formation and a layer of dull-silver magic power then appeared wrapped around Silent Ark's exterior; the dull-silver layer of magic power rippled perpetually. Nick smiled in response to the appearance of the exterior layer of magic, his tired eyes relaxing a little while he reclined in his chair and declared:
"Silent Ark is officially complete."
Nick then deactivated most of Silent Ark's power, which made the dull-silver magic power surrounding its exterior vanish. Following that, Nick got up from the leather chair and left Silent Ark's cabin. As soon as he was outside, standing on the parking lot floor, he stored the floating magic formation into his space band. After that, Nick wearily went to his bedroom on the second floor and fell into bed, at which point, he fell asleep immediately.
When Nick woke up two days later, he showered quickly, got dressed in a red and white striped polo shirt, a pair of dark-blue jeans pants and a pair of black leather work boots. He then went to the ground floor where he had Dewy prepare him a meal of scrambled eggs, pork sausages, pancakes with maple syrup and a slice of black forest cake. After eating, Nick decided that he was not going to waste time in getting on with what he was going to do next.
(It's time to explore another realm.)
Nick had been keeping the spatial coordinates for the realm that he had first used his space path transportation magic formation within the underground parking lot to visit after making use of the jade-green wyvern's refined blood. Nick was not going to hesitate to return to that unknown realm.
After informing Dewy that he would be travelling for a while, Nick went to the transportation magic formation at the center of the underground parking lot and used his magic energy to fix the right spatial coordinates into it. Following that, he moved to the center of the transportation formation.
(Now that I think about it, I never gave this magic formation a proper name. I will call it the Space Transit Formation.)
After deciding on a name for his space path transportation formation, Nick activated it by saying its trigger phrase in Valteese:
"Begin."
The Space Transit Formation then radiated a bright, silver light that filled Nick's vision and when the silver light abated, Nick found himself situated on a rocky plain consisting of grey rocks and dirt. The environment seemed well lit somehow despite the sky being completely dark and starless.
Nick looked around for a few minutes and even cast Warp Sense in order to see if he could find any peculiarities. After finding nothing worth mentioning, Nick cancelled Warp Sense and summoned Silent Ark from his space band. Silent Ark then appeared floating one foot off the ground in front of him. Silent Ark's exterior was made of a black, space path metal called, float metal; the metal naturally granted structures that were built out of it the passive ability to float a little above surfaces beneath it unless the surrounding gravity was too strong or the structure's overall weight was to great relative to the amount of float metal used in its construction.
Nick cast Absolute Push and Absolute Pull in order to raise himself to the level of Silent Ark's door, following which, he opened the door and went inside. Nick closed the door behind him and sat in the black leather chair at the center and willed for Silent Ark to full activate. The magic formation's five display screens then appeared immediately in front of Nick and Silent Ark's exterior was wrapped by a layer of dull-silver magic power that was another one of its space path abilities.
Nick quickly manipulated the dull-silver magic power on the exterior of Silent Ark in order to cause it to perfectly blend in with the appearance of the surroundings. From the perspective of anything that looked at Silent Ark's position, they would just see the bare environment unless they used a rank 3 or above scouting method that would reveal Silent Ark's actual form to them but in this large and seemingly vacant place, that seemed unlikely for now.
Nick willed for Silent Ark to move forward and it did so at the velocity of a speeding car; with no obstructions, Nick did not hesitate to move at a rapid pace.
(I could raise Silent Ark higher into the air to get a better view of the surroundings but I don't want to risk a magic beast being able to get a better view of Silent Ark. Now that I think about it, building Silent Ark basically involved refinement path because all its magical laws are being controlled by my wills or rather, multiple of my self-wills as well as my magic energy. Hmmm...)
While Nick pondered the implications of refinement path, he further activated Silent Ark's scouting abilities and two wide spreading pulses of space path and soul path magic power were radiated in all directions of Silent Ark, travelling up to a kilometer all around before seemingly dissipating. Nick's mind was then bombarded with images that soon became as familiar to him as the appearance of the back of his own right hand and as Silent Ark continued to move forward, these images grew in quantity.
(Silent Ark's scouting ability uses space path to see through obstructions and gives me a better sense of the minute details over a kilometer of space all around and also uses soul path to convert the information gained into soul messages that are conveyed to my soul and then into my mind in the form of scenes and images, making them very familiar to me; the soul path aspect also makes detecting hidden magic beasts a little easier by also acting as a sort of radar, making my mind the radar's receiver.)
Like this Nick traveled dozens of kilometers over the next five hours until he finally found something that wasn't just rocky ground. Nick found a seemingly natural well that consisted of a hole in the ground, beneath which, was a kind of dark-brown, stagnant liquid. Silent Ark's scouting method could also transmit information that identified types of magic energy so Nick soon discovered that the dark-brown liquid emitted traces of earth path magic.
There seemed to be no signs of life within the well that apparently consisted of a very large volume of just the dark-brown liquid. Nick stopped Silent Ark beside the well and deactivated its camouflage before exiting it. Nick stood at the edge of the hole in the ground and observed the stagnant, dark-brown liquid for about five minutes before deciding:
(I might as well extract all of this magic material.)